Rejecting Criticism, EPA Touts CWA 401 Rule's 'Cooperative Federalism'

摘要

Posted June 1, 2020 EPA is defending its final Clean Water Act (CWA) rule limiting the scope of state reviews of federally permitted projects' water quality impacts as defining the appropriate parameters of the agency's "cooperative federalism" policy balancing EPA and states' regulatory powers, rejecting calls from critics that the rule undercuts states' authority. "[T]he final rule does not infringe upon the roles of States as co-regulators, nor does it undermine cooperative federalism," EPA says in the rule, signed June 1 by EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler ahead of its upcoming publication in the Federal Register.